


Social Media Rules For Dummies

by ladymarauder85



Series: Bitter Sweet [6]
Category: CrissColfer - Fandom, Glee RPF
Genre: Angry publicists, Humor, M/M, crisscolfer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-13
Updated: 2015-05-13
Packaged: 2018-03-30 10:08:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3932773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladymarauder85/pseuds/ladymarauder85
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris and Darren get a social media lesson from two very stressed publicists.<br/>Set around five months after Darren joins Glee.</p><p>Cameos from Lea and Joey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Social Media Rules For Dummies

  1. **No drunk tweeting**



“This is number one. As in capital letters and in flashing neon lights that can be seen from the fucking moon,” Ricky said, underlining it in his red pen. “The world doesn’t need to know how funny you think you are when you’re pissed. Or how hot you think each other is.”

Chris thought it would be brilliant if Darren’s publicist was holding one of those pointy sticks as he wrote on the whiteboard in his office to smack against each point threateningly, but instead, he was just giving them all a really serious stare.

 “I’ll agree with that one. You both get really affectionate when you’ve been drinking,” Lea announced from her position on Chris’s lap.

 She had invited herself along as he and Darren had both spent the night at hers after a few too many drinks and had carpooled to work that day. They had picked up one of Darren’s friends on their way who wanted to come for “the entertainment value” of the whole thing. Both publicists agreed they could all use a refresher now and again, so let them all in.

“Whenever a drink is put into your hand,” Ricky continued, with the air of a teacher talking to a bunch of pre-schoolers. “Log out of all your public social media accounts straight away. In fact, just delete the Twitter app from your phones, Instagram too. When you’ve had a lot to drink you like to get naked and I will kill you, Darren. I mean it.”

“That's true and there’s loads of semi-nude ones out there already,” Joey added, unhelpfully. “Ohh, dude remember dare week junior year when we spent the night drinking those bottles of cheap tequila and you stripped and ran through the knee-deep snow before class? There must be _hundreds_ of those pictures out there and I’m sure you’d love to get a peek at that,” he added to Chris giving him a giant grin, which he returned. “We must have spent that entire week smashed.”

“Hardcore,” Chris said to Darren. “How the hell have they not surfaced yet?”

Darren looked quite concerned and seemed to be concentrating, trying to recall the memory.

“Oh and when you got arrested in that club for taking all your clothes off on the dancefloor. I dunno why you did that though, I’ll ask they guys, maybe they’ll remember,” Joey pulled his phone out and tapped out a text. Chris turned to Darren and mouthed “arrested?” with wide, shocked eyes. Darren’s face was bright red and Ricky looked mutinous.

Then he seemed to realise exactly what Joey had said and gaped at him, aghast. “Fucking _arrested_? How the hell did I not know about this? If that gets out, Darren – _arrested_! Please tell me you’re winding me up!”

 “When I hired Gracie, she did a background check on me to make sure I wasn’t hiding anything she might have to cover up later. I just assumed all publicists did that?” Lea asked as though it was the most normal thing in the world.

“You told me there were no skeletons in your fucking closet!”

Joey, Chris, Lea and Alla all snorted at once.

“Yeah, I er forgot?”

“He forgot he got arrested,” Ricky said deadpan to the ceiling. “Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

“No, nope. That’s everything, I promise,” Darren said, quickly, his face beaming.

“But what about the time when me and you –“ Joey’s next story was interrupted with Darren’s warning look. “Ohh never mind...” Chris looked at Darren and gave him a look which warned him he wanted all the details when they got home. For some reason, he wasn’t _that_ shocked by what he’d heard if he was honest, just that it’d taken this long to find out about it.

“I’ve never been arrested, Alla. Just in case you needed to know,” Chris said to his friend who had poured a whiskey from the decanter on Ricky’s desk and handed the tumbler to the hysterical man.

“Ha!! Guys, look, look!” Joey sprang up, delighted look on his face. “Brian came through! He has a picture! This is fucking incredible!” He dived over to the sofa and Darren immediately wrestled the phone out of his hands.

“Oh fuck, delete it!” He cried. “How the fuck does he have that! Oh shit, shit, shit!”

Lea was cackling, trying to get a look but it disappeared before she could. Chris, however, did manage to catch a glimpse of Darren’s wild hair and naked ass with a security guard holding one arm and cop holding the other.

Chris laughed until tears were rolling down his cheeks.

 

  1.         **If you have to think about it, don’t post it.**



“This one is obvious. If you have to think about it, send it to me or Ricky first – and no Joey, I do not want to receive any messages from you ever again as long as I live, thank you,” Alla said, just as Darren’s best friend opened his mouth to make a cheeky comment. “Find your own publicist.”

Chris was still wiping the tears away a few minutes later and Darren had managed to coax a whiskey for himself and was sipping it quietly next to him. Lea had sent out a text blast to a few of their friends and Chris was silently reading the hilarious replies as they came through.

Ricky had left the room to make a few calls following the news that Darren had spent a naked night in the police cells in Chicago and had to be bailed out by his brother, and returned looking _slightly_ calmer.

“Remember, once it’s online it never goes and the teenage girls never forget _anything_. They will read into everything you post. Please, just be careful,” she stressed.

 

  1. **Frequency**



“For every self-promotion tweet or picture, post a personal one for the fans. Acceptable, innocent things include pictures of your pets, food you’re eating, music you are listening to, etc, but change it up, you don’t wanna seem boring. In fact, just follow Lea’s example, her social media accounts are perfect. “

“Thank you, Alla. I don’t need to be told off like you two,” she said eying Darren who was sitting next to Chris, because out of all of them, he was clearly the biggest liability. Darren rolled his eyes. Lea’s team had the easiest job in the world with her.

Ricky nodded in agreement, adding (re: Lea) next to it on the board. “Keep the pictures and tweets between the two of you to a minimum. I suggest stop interacting on social media completely to avoid any slip ups. Actually, that can be number four...

 

  1. **Don’t interact on social media AT ALL**



“Fuck off, Ricky,” Chris said, effectively ending that conversation for the time being.

 

  1. **Don’t retweet praise**



“It makes you look like a douche, just don’t do it.”

 

  1. **Trolls**



“Ignore them,” Ricky said underlining it. “If they get really bad, the hardcore fans will sort it out; you don’t need to get involved.”

 “Ohh that’s just what we all want to do, encourage online bullying,” Joey piped up. He was back sitting on Ricky’s office chair, with raised eyebrows.

“That’s not what I meant; get your feet off my desk.”

“If it’s really bad, just block them,” Lea said sensibly as she massaged the back of Chris’s very tense neck. “There’s no need to make a big deal of it,” she added sensibly.

 

  1. **Interacting with fans**



“Right, this is the complicated one,” Alla began. Lea swung her legs up so they were resting on Darren’s thighs and she wiggled down on Chris’s lap to get comfortable. That didn’t bode well; it meant this was going to be a long one. “You can tweet them back as much as you like, just make sure you tweet a few at a time to keep them happy.”

“Q&As are brilliant as well,” Ricky said, writing it on the board.

“Definitely –“

“Look, guys,” Chris interrupted. They’d all had a 5am call time after a pretty late night, he was hungry and a headache was brewing and he just wanted to put his feet up and crash in front of some trash TV. “I know this is the kind of thing that’s in your job description, but it’s all very obvious. I barely even use Twitter, everyone’s crazy and honestly this is all completely unnecessary.”

“When you decide to do a little Q&A make sure you let them know you only have a short amount of time – say 10 questions worth. Only answer things about your work or whatever. Private life stuff is out of the question, obviously.”

Chris rolled his eyes at Ricky, who ignored him completely and let his head drop on the back of the sofa, Sometimes he wondered why he even bothered. As Alla banged on about the plus points of discussing the show with the fans, he let his mind wander. Darren found his hand and linked their fingers, hidden by Lea’s legs. She gave them both a small smile.

“Remember guys, no debating heavy politics with any of the fans or getting into ANY arguments, passive aggressive or otherwise,” Alla warned. “Remember, you’re representing the show before anything else and the fans are the most important thing. Give them nice little snippets of your life but that’s it.”

 

  1. **Interacting with other celebrities:**



“Do it! Fans love it when they know you’re actually friends with other famous people in real life and that you are fans of them yourself.”

“Hang on Alla,” Darren said with the air of pointing out the obvious. “Why can we interact with other people but not each other? Chris is one of those famous people too-“

“Because you’re not screwing any of those other famous people, Darren,” Ricky snapped.

He was starting to get really annoyed again which Chris thought was highly entertaining. Still, when he got pissed off it usually meant he made things even more difficult for the pair of them. He dragged Darren to every event going and was glued to his side permanently, which irritated Chris no end.

He didn’t like Chris very much.

“Just fanboy occasionally, like you do in real life. Just be yourselves.” Chris, Lea, Joey and even Ricky turned to look at Alla. “Oh you know what I mean.”

 

  1. **Be sensible.**



Both publicists eyed both their charges seriously.

“Just be careful,” Ricky said.“Look, you might think we’re being harsh here but you know we do have your best interests at heart.”

Chris knew that they were right and he tried his best to keep himself out of the public eye as much as he could anyway.

“I know it’s really difficult for you both and the situation you’re in, but you know how things are right now and Darren coming out just isn’t an option right now.”

Chris nodded once at Alla.

He and Darren had talked about it in passing of course. At first Darren had insisted in interviews that it didn’t matter what his sexuality was because it really _shouldn’t_ matter. Then it had been pointed out (by Ricky) that it sounded much better that the straight guy is comfortable in a gay role, so that’s what they went with. Darren wasn’t seeing anyone at the time and he had been with girls in the past so it wasn’t that much of an issue. Plus, Darren had never actually been in a serious relationship with a guy so his parents weren’t actually aware he was flexible when it came to these things. And it had been pointed out by more than one person; in Hollywood you’re gay or straight. No blurred lines.

Chris had a feeling Ricky was being strict with the sexuality thing because he didn’t things would last between them, like Darren enjoying being fucked in the ass was a passing phase and maybe it was. Still, they hadn’t been seeing each other for too long so that didn’t bother Chris too much.

There was a fairly long pause as they waited for the next point but it didn’t come. So Chris nudged Lea off his lap and stood up as the rest made their moves to head off.

Chris leaned over and gave Alla a hug and kiss on the cheek, “Dinner this weekend?” he said, feeling like he owed her a fucking Caribbean holiday after what they’d just been through.

Darren stretched and gave a massive yawn, jaw cracking. “Are we gonna get this all on a PDF?” He asked. “It’s just it’s been a really long day at work and—“

“I’ll tattoo it you your fucking forehead,” Ricky all but roared. “Stop being such a smart ass and just do what I fucking tell you. Honestly, I need to start charging you double with the shit I’m having to cover up here.”

Chris raised his eyebrows at Darren, whose hazel eyes twinkled back, clearly enjoying himself.

Once they finally made it out of the office and into Lea’s car, she started the engine and grinned wickedly.

“Amber, Jenna and Cory are all on their way to mine as we speak,” Chris closed his eyes tight, missing the naughty look she gave Darren’s best friend in the passenger seat. “Joey, call your pal, we all wanna see that picture.”

Darren whined from his seat in the back to Joey’s bark of laughter as he high fived Lea.

Chris sighed. It was going to be another long night then.


End file.
